Tips and notes-1

Capitalizing nouns
In German, all nouns are capitalized. For example, "my name" is "mein
Name," and "the apple" is "der Apfel." This helps you identify which are the
nouns in a sentence.
Three grammatical genders, three types of nouns
Nouns in German are either feminine, masculine or neuter. For example,
"Frau" (woman) is feminine, "Mann" (man) is masculine, and "Kind" (child) is
neuter. The grammatical gender may not match the biological gender:
"Mdchen" (girl) is a neuter noun.
It is very important to learn every noun along with its gender because parts
of German sentences change depending on the gender of their nouns.
Generally speaking, the definite article "die" (the) and the indefinite article
"eine" (a/an) are used for feminine nouns, "der" and "ein" for masculine
nouns, and "das" and "ein" for neuter nouns. For example, it is "die Frau,"
"der Mann," and "das Kind." However, later you will see that this changes
depending on something called the "case of the noun."
masculine

neuter

indefinite (a/an)

feminine

ein Mann

definite (the)der Mann

ein Mdchen eine Frau

das Mdchen

die Frau

Conjugations of the verb sein (to be)

A few verbs like "sein" (to be) are completely irregular, and their conjugations
simply need to be memorized:
ich bin

I am

du bist

you (singular informal) are

er/sie/es ist he/she/it is

wir sind

we are

ihr seid

you (plural informal) are

sie sind

they are

Sie sind

you (formal) are

Conjugating regular verbs

Verb conjugation in German is more challenging than in English. To conjugate

a regular verb in the present tense, identify the invariant stem of the verb
and add the ending corresponding to any of the grammatical persons, which
you can simply memorize:
trinken (to drink)
English person
I

-e

ending

ich trinke

you (singular informal)

he/she/it

-t

we

wir trinken

-en

you (formal) -en

-en

-st

du trinkst

er/sie/es trinkt

you (plural informal)

they

German example

-t

ihr trinkt

Sie trinken

sie trinken

Notice that the 1st and the 3rd person plural have the same ending as "you
(formal)."
Umlauts
Umlauts are letters (more specifically vowels) that have two dots above them
and appear in some German words like "Mdchen." Literally, "Umlaut" means
"around the sound," because its function is to change how the vowel sounds.
An umlaut can sometimes indicate the plural of a word. For example, the
plural of "Mutter" (mother) is "Mtter." It might even change the meaning of a
word entirely. That's why it's very important not to ignore those little dots.
No continuous aspect
In German, there's no continuous aspect, i.e. there are no separate forms for
"I drink" and "I am drinking". There's only one form: Ich trinke.
There's no such thing as Ich bin trinke or Ich bin trinken!
When translating into English, how can I tell whether to use the simple (I
drink) or the continuous form (I am drinking)?
Unless the context suggests otherwise, either form should be accepted.